


what is mortal and unsure

by 28ghosts



Category: Star Trek: The Next Generation
Genre: Established Relationship, Injury, M/M, being with a Q is never not complicated, more bittersweet than the author had intended
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-02
Updated: 2017-09-02
Packaged: 2018-12-22 21:18:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,072
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11975217
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/28ghosts/pseuds/28ghosts
Summary: “He’ll be alright,” Picard said. It felt foolish to say -- Quentin, of course, knew that, had no doubt been informed by the nurses of the very same things Picard had. But it was difficult, sometimes, to talk to his husband’s son.Quentin had been a difficult child and a difficult teenager, when Picard had first met him. All of his father’s rough edges and instinct for rebellion without accompanying cunning or guile.“Of course he will,” Quentin said, though it didn’t sound cruel. “Do you remember?”-(Q ends up in the hospital after a freak accident; Picard weathers things as best he can.)





	what is mortal and unsure

**Author's Note:**

> based on [this](https://68.media.tumblr.com/1ec1adf050587fd41bbbcf3cb5230406/tumblr_oubl87NM3q1uwmdg0o1_540.jpg) lovely art prompt by bisexualgreyjoys <3 the story kind of got away from me -- the first draft had more to directly do with the prompt -- but hopefully this is enjoyable anyways!! title from hamlet.

It was fourteen minutes after Jean-Luc Picard got the call that he was in an automated taxi headed for the hospital. The only thing he could think, during the drive, watching London’s storefronts and ground floors blur as the taxi shifted through traffic, was that this shouldn’t have happened. There were _guidelines_ about this sort of thing, laws and regulations meant to limit the number and severity of accidents pertaining to construction sites. It was the only thing he could think: this shouldn’t have happened, it is supposed to be safe for a man to walk down the street. As if were Q to die, Picard might be able to convince the universe that it was unfair Q would die in such an unlucky, stupid way, and that Q might come back.

It was seven minutes after he arrived at the hospital that a nurse informed him that while the extent of Q’s injuries was dramatic, he was expected to make a full recovery. It would take more, it seemed, than a freak accident to kill Q: half a building might have collapsed on him, leaving him concussed, bleeding out on the street, ribcage half-crushed and both lungs punctured, yes, but that wouldn’t kill him. Not yet.

It was two hours forty-three minutes after he arrived that the surgeons were finished and Q was stable enough for Picard to visit him. Q was unconscious. His skin looked waxen and pale against the stark red of the hospital sheets, and for a moment, Picard thought there had been some horrible mistake and Q was actually dead, and this was the doctors bringing him to identify the body -- but no. He sat beside the bed for awhile, watching Q breathe slow and steady, and only left when the nurses insisted.

When he came back the next morning, still scarcely able to believe what had happened, Q was awake, managing to annoy the nurses despite the painkillers and sedatives still coursing through him. Of course, thought Picard, feeling so fond that he had to brace himself against the door -- Q was irrepressible.

 

-

 

Q mocked him for being worried. 

“I’m quite sorry, but you lost a third of your blood,” Picard said. “That’s quite a lot, you know.”

“They’re very good at blood these days, Jean-Luc,” Q had snapped back. “Perhaps you forget that, due to your age -- I’m sure that when you were a boy that was _hardly_ the case, hmm? Back in the dark ages of medical antiquity? Tell me, did your parents ever subject you to _leeches_? That _would_ explain an awful lot about your dreadful personality, I think.”

It took the better part of an hour of bickering for Picard’s hands to stop shaking.

 

-

 

“I hate it when you look at me like that,” Q said, after the head of surgery had come to visit, detailing all the ways Q’s body was slowly repairing itself. His voice was bitter, and Picard nearly said something he would have regretted. 

“I’m looking at you like I care about you,” Picard said, “because I do, and because you’ve scared me tremendously. If you’d prefer avoid this sort of outcome in the future, might I recommend you exercise more caution when in proximity to high-rise construction?”

“No, no, no, Jean-Luc.” Q had closed his eyes, and his brows were drawn together. His voice was sharp with annoyance even through the haze of medication. “That’s not what I mean.”

“What do you mean, Q?”

“I don’t like it when you look at me so _seriously_. Like I’m…”

It was too easy to imagine what Q’s next words could have been. _Like I’m your whole universe. Like I’m all that matters to you._ Things Q had said to him too many times to count. Typical of Q -- to be unnerved seeing any part of himself reflected in another human.

“I apologize,” Picard said. He didn’t bother restraining his amusement. Q knew him too well, would hear it anyhow. “I shall endeavor to look at you less.”

“Much better. You know, Jean-Luc, sometimes I think I preferred it when you hated me.”

“I never hated you, Q.”

“Lies, lies, damned lies.”

Picard nearly laughed at the glee in Q’s voice. They were returning to familiar grounds, a disagreement comforting in its familiarity. “I hated that you got in my way, yes. And I hated that you questioned my authority.” He let go of Q’s hand and settled back in his chair, fighting to not take in the dreadful realness of the scene. To see Q attached to so many machines, to see the pink stretch of biogenerated skin across so much of his body, all in concert with the ambient mechanical sounds of the medical ward. “I’ve hated many things you’ve done, but I have never hated you.”

“Hmmph. If you say so.”

“I believe you’ll find that’s what I’ve just done.”

Q opened his eyes just to roll them in annoyance. “You, Jean-Luc, are profoundly dreadful. And to a man on the brink of death, no less -- to think we’re _married_. I should divorce you. Bet you I’d get more than half the estate in the settlement, hmm?”

“No doubt you would.”

Q closed his eyes again, and his breathing had slowed to the point where Picard assumed him asleep. And then he wriggled his fingers against the stark red of the ward sheets, and Picard leaned forward to interlace their fingers.

“I _was_ awfully good at getting in your way, though,” Q said.

“You have a marvelous gift for understatement.”

“One of many gifts I have,” Q said loftily. “Say, do you think that’s why they never gave me a uniform?”

When Picard had first admitted he was seeing Q, most of the Enterprise crew hadn’t believed him. Troi had, of course, by virtue of her empathic senses; she was second only to Guinan in having anticipated the abrupt change in course their relationship had taken. Picard had never known how Guinan knew and had never asked. Guinan had seemed disapproving at first, and yet who, aside from Troi, hadn’t? Riker masked his disapproval with concern that Picard had involved himself with a civilian science consultant, and Dr. Crusher with quiet speculation about what neuroatypicality might best describe Q’s outbursts.

But their protests hadn’t lasted. It was only a few weeks before Riker was grinningly teasing Picard for his new sense of whimsy, before even Data awkwardly noted Picard’s change in blood pressure. Before complaints from the Science Division against Q dropped by nearly half. (Though of course, they never went away, not entirely.)

Perhaps it made little sense to someone watching from the outside, and yet now, years later, what was there that made no sense? Q’s same sentimentality, masked not by Picard’s historical pretensions but by irony and humor; Q’s similar romanticism, cloaked by the same.

“You did have a uniform,” Picard said.

“No, not a consultant’s uniform, a Starfleet uniform!”

“I rather think that had more to do with your being a civilian contractor,” Picard said. “But perhaps you’re onto something. They might have changed regulations before your retirement had it not been for you.”

“I knew it,” Q said, with satisfaction.

 

-

 

Q was asleep when Quentin and Qamaraat arrived. Quentin had been notified same as Picard shortly after the accident had occurred, and Q hadn’t bothered trying to dissuade his son from visiting. Qamaraat’s presence was rather more of a surprise -- though she and Quentin had been dating for the better part of two years, she was generally busy. To the point that Picard had only met her a few times. He rose to greet them, even though Qamaraat tsked and shook her head. “Please, don’t trouble yourself for us,” she said. 

“Nonsense,” Picard said. She leaned in to half-hug him, her hands resting on his elbows. “Q is resting, thank goodness. Between you and me, I think they may have sedated him for his own good.”

She smiled. “I would believe it.”

Quentin looked haggard, of course. He shook Picard’s hand, looking a little at a loss.

“I could leave you with him,” Picard said. “I should -- I should get something to drink, perhaps.”

“Let me come with you,” Quentin said.

“I’ll stay here,” Qamaraat said, slipping her jacket off her shoulders. “So if he wakes up while you’re gone, he won’t irritate a nurse to the point of getting murdered.”

“I would be lying were I to say that the possibility of that occurring was not something of a concern,” Picard said, and Qamaraat laughed.

 

-

 

Quentin led the way towards the hospital replimat in silence. Like his father, he was taller than Picard, but he walked slowly, deliberately; despite his years, it was no trouble for Picard to keep up. The replimat was mostly empty, and Quentin drew up coffee, Picard tea, before they sat together by the window.

“He’ll be alright,” Picard said. It felt foolish to say -- Quentin, of course, knew that, had no doubt been informed by the nurses of the very same things Picard had. But it was difficult, sometimes, to talk to his husband’s son.

Quentin had been a difficult child and a difficult teenager, when Picard had first met him. All of his father’s rough edges and instinct for rebellion without accompanying cunning or guile.

“Of course he will,” Quentin said, though it didn’t sound cruel. “Do you remember?”

Picard stared for a moment at Quentin, trying to puzzle out what it was he was supposed to remember -- for a moment, he hadn’t the slightest, and then there was the slow-dawning conviction that there was something enormous he had managed to completely forget, something that Quentin hadn’t forgotten, and then, then he remembered.

He closed his eyes.

“Did he die?” Picard asked. “Was it your doing, saving him?”

“Yes,” Quentin said. “Or he didn’t die. But he would have.”

A shuddering breath. Everything felt wrong, so wrong -- it always did, the remembering. He wasn’t _supposed_ to remember -- he was supposed to never, ever remember -- but sometimes Quentin saw fit to tug away at the perfect construct of Picard’s false memories. He felt sick. He focused on the slickness of his mug. “Thank you,” he said.

There were a dozen conversations they could have had -- conversations they’d had before. Picard’s fumbling apologies for stealing Q’s immortality and memories of godhood -- of the Continuum -- and Quentin would wave him off.

Q wouldn’t survive being Q much longer, Quentin would say. Being human corrupted him. He wanted, and he wanted in a way that Q cannot want. At least this way, his death will be kind. That was what Quentin always said.

Picard wondered if Quentin believed it, but there was no puzzling out the true feelings of a Q. He knew that damned well enough. They sat in silence for a few minutes, and when the forgetfulness started to set in once more, it was a nearly incomprehensible relief: no more the burden of knowing the path Q had chosen had been for Picard, no more the dissonance between true memories of Q’s whimsy and cruelty and unimaginable power and the false memories of human Q’s pettiness and passion.

“I apologize,” Picard said. “What were we talking about just now? I’m very sorry, it’s just the -- the stress of all this…”

Quentin smiled. “You were just about to tell me when my father’s going to be released,” he prompted.

“Right,” Picard said. “Of course. If things go well, it may be just a few days…”

 

-

 

Q had a miraculous recovery, the doctors said. Perhaps just luck, or perhaps the restive properties of his having both his husband and his son keeping him company -- it does patients good, one of the nurses mentioned, to be surrounded by people who care about them.

Picard didn’t think about it too hard. No use overthinking good fortune, not when it came to Q.

 

-

 

“Really,” Q said, after they’d returned to Picard’s estate, settled back in. “Isn’t leaving London for France a little dramatic? It’s not like I’m less likely to die here, and we barely had time to see anything!" 

“We’ve been to London before,” Picard said, long-suffering, “and for all I care, we can go back next week. But for now -- for _my_ health -- let’s _stay here._ ”

“Fine, fine, very well,” Q said. “It’s not as if death could come for us here, too -- at least in London I could die somewhere _interesting_.”

Q pretended for hours to not know why Picard was angry with him. Picard pretended not to know that this was Q’s way of coping with what had happened -- blithe nihilism, lashing out. He still cooked dinner for them both.

Though of course Q wouldn’t let it lie.

“Come, I wasn’t injured _that_ badly. There’s no reason to still be so _dramatic_ about it all. You were hardly preparing my eulogy.” Q’s eyes widened, and he froze so suddenly that his wine, raised halfway to his lips, sloshed in his glass. “Unless you _were_. Jean-Luc, you sentimental fool! You simply must tell me what you’d planned to say; don’t be cruel.”

Picard fought a smile as he swallowed. The sun had set, but Q’s wide, dark eyes glimmered with reflected candlelight. His husband’s gaze was fixed on him, unwavering, even as he finally raised his wine to his mouth.

“Indeed I have been,” Picard said. “It’s short, I’m afraid.”

“Of course it is,” Q said. “You’d embarrass yourself trying to list everything great about me if you didn’t limit yourself.”

“How right you are.”

“Well, go on, then,” Q said. “If it’s short, all the more reason to share, hmm?”

Picard raised his glass, holding Q’s stare. “In memory of Q,” he said gravely. “The most annoying entity I have ever had the misfortune of crossing paths with. I loved him dearly.”

Q grabbed at his heart in mock betrayal. “Geniuses are never appreciated in their time.”

“Your genius for annoyance has been well-appreciated in your time, I believe. However, I shall ensure to elaborate more in my next draft of your eulogy.”

“Oh, Jean-Luc,” Q said, “you’re the only one who understands me.”

Picard fought a smile as he took a drink. A ‘57 vintage, more bitter than most but subtle in its own way, if you focused on it. A sweeter aftertaste than one might expect. “I would never be so arrogant as to claim to understand you, Q. That would be insulting.”

Q chuckled at that. It made Picard feel more tender, suddenly, than he cared to -- to feel tender about Q always seemed almost condescending. He was a force of nature, a man with no time for caution or shame, and yet all too capable of subtlety and manipulation. Q was a quick, bright thing, like some Shakespearean trickster. And, for all that, it was so uncommon that he laughed.

(And yet Q could be soft when he wanted to. Picard never would have guessed, when they’d first met aboard the Enterprise, when he’d had to confine Q to quarters more than a dozen times in the first year of their acquaintance.)

“Well, I suppose you come as close as anyone,” Q said.

“What can I say? You’re a fascinating study.”

Q’s eyes widened as he leaned across the table. “Captain, are you _flirting_ with me? You just wait until Starfleet hears about this.”

“Yes, wait until they hear we’ve been married for twelve years. They’ll be horrified. I’ll be decommissioned from my retirement immediately.”

“Finish eating already so we can go to bed already,” Q snapped.

It was, Picard had to admit, a convincing argument.

 

-

 

“I want to tell you what my last thought was, when I was bleeding out in that street,” Q said. Their room was dark, and Q had been quiet for so long that Picard had half-thought him asleep.

He felt himself tense, even as Q somehow remained soft and pliant against him, his thumb moving in small circles against Picard’s side. Whatever it was Q was about to say, he knew that he didn’t want to hear it, and yet if Q needed to say it, then, well -- he would listen. The machinery of his heart felt uncommonly heavy in his chest, as if suddenly all his flesh and blood realized what foreign thing rested inside him.

“I was relieved,” Q said, “that because I was dying, I wouldn’t live to see you die. I couldn’t survive it, Jean-Luc. I couldn’t.”

“You could,” Picard whispered. “If something happens to me, you -- you could, you _must_ go on.”

Picard felt Q’s heavy sign across his skin. It made him shiver.

“I would promise you that if I could. You know that. I’d promise you anything within my abilities, _mon capitaine_.” Q’s touch stilled, and his fingernails suddenly pressed into Picard’s side, not quite painful. His voice had also quieted to just a whisper. “Merely a night with you holds infinitely more value to me than even an eternity without you. In comparison, what worth has enduring the rest of a life without you?”

The play of light on the wall seemed dizzying; Picard closed his eyes. He wanted to say something about the madness of love, about how only a fool would choose the company of someone like Picard over the powers of a god. But the words died on his tongue. He knew, with unsettling conviction, that Q meant what he’d said.

He shifted so that he could thread his fingers through Q’s hair. “I really do love you dearly.”

Q hummed, and Picard felt it reverberate through his chest. “Love is such a paltry word, don’t you think?”

“Perhaps it’s a bit worn-out,” Picard said. “But I’m afraid it’s all we have.”

It was a long moment before Q spoke again. “Don’t be silly. No, it’s not.” His words had started to slur with exhaustion. “I have you, don’t I? Far better than a _word_.”

“Yes, you do. You have me.”

It was a long time before Picard could sleep. He couldn’t shake his thoughts from the image of Q in his hospital bed, wan and dark-eyed. They had time left, so much time left, if they were careful, and yet, for some reason, it didn’t feel like enough. The pauses between Q’s deep, slow breaths terrified him. What a strange man, Q, and what strange circumstances they had met; what a gift, what a treasure.

 

**Author's Note:**

> [here's a [tumblr link to reblog](http://twentyeightghosts.tumblr.com/post/164900320577/when-blood-is-their-argument-28ghosts-star), should it strike your fancy; thanks for reading <3]


End file.
